Chapter Sixteen: Ten Moves Ahead
"Then someone's playing a longer game than we thought," Jin muttered, his voice low, eyes fixed on the silent, flickering feed.
The room around him went still.
Every agent, every commander, every analyst could feel it—This wasn't just a missing person case anymore.Someone had outmaneuvered them all.
Somewhere Unseen…
A woman stood in a room carved beneath the bones of an abandoned fortress.The glow of encrypted monitors lit her face like stained glass painted in flame.
She watched as the world tore itself apart on her screens—Jin's face frozen in disbelief. Kai Ren's rage trembling behind his mask. The decoy girl. The syndicates. The fire.
She traced it all with her fingertip like an artist perfecting her masterpiece.
And then… she smiled.
"Good," she whispered. "Now they chase shadows."
Her name was Nyxara.
A name never written.Never spoken aloud.Not unless you were ready to bleed.
☠ Her Origin — Erased From the Earth
Once, long ago, she had another name.But it died in the fire that took her family.In the silence of the state blacksite that trained her.
She wasn't raised.
She was engineered.
To observe.To control.To command.
She watched kingdoms fall from behind two-way glass.She saw warlords weep.Watched traitors die with her name on their lips.
And when she escaped, she didn't run.
She evolved.
Nyxara infiltrated trafficking networks.She didn't dismantle them.She learned from them.
She rose like a shadow from within.Built her own cells. Her own circles.She played buyer, seller, broker, hunter—and always ten steps ahead.
And when her empire began, no one even noticed.
Now
She stood behind every shattered lead.The bounty. The decoy.The chaos spinning out of control.
Not because she lost it—But because she planned it.
Lisa was just a symbol now.A spark to ignite the storm.
Nyxara was the fire.
Back to Jin
"Run that footage again," Jin ordered.The woman in the silhouette.Something in her voice—it clung to him.
Too composed.Too calm.
He didn't recognize her.
But somewhere, deep in his bones, he knew…She recognized him.
"Voiceprint. Full trace. I want to know who she is."
But the system spat back the same response:
UNTRACEABLE. UNKNOWN. CODE: NX-00
Across the Ocean…
Kai Ren watched flames spiral through the jungle.
His most trusted hacker ran to him, face pale.
"Sir… the crypto used to fund the decoy girl—it came from inside your own shell accounts."
Kai Ren's mask turned slowly.His voice was ice:
"Who authorized it?"
A few keystrokes.
One file appeared. Redacted.Encrypted. Burned into the drive.
But one line blinked through:
Authorized by: N.
He didn't know it yet.Neither of them did.
But Nyxara was not hunting Lisa.She was playing them all—Commander, detective, syndicate.